YORK COUNTY — The York County Board of Supervisors approved its 2026 budget, Capital Improvement Program and set the tax rates for the 2025 calendar year at its meeting Tuesday.
County Administrator Mark Bellamy noted some of the big changes that occurredat the board’s request to the budget over the five-month process, including adding five new sheriff deputy positions while decreasing the sheriff’s overtime; moving the proposed Yorktown permanent stage to the tourism fund; level funding the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority, which decreased the original ask by $300,000; and refining its revenue estimates.
The real estate tax rate will increase from 74 cents to 78 cents per $100 and personal property tax will increase by 20 cents to $4 per $100.
In addition, the county is increasing solid waste fees as well as various building regulation, subdivision and zoning fees.
The board approved the $291,611,673 budget’s adoption 4-to-1, with District 3 Supervisor Wayne Drewry opposing.
“It’s a multi-month-long process to get to this point. A lot of due diligence — a lot of engagement,” said District 4 Supervisor Stephen Roane. “I was really happy with the amount of engagement we had with the residents, staff and board this year. All the extra meetings, it really sets a model standard that maybe others can look to about how to work on a budget throughout the process.”
“At the end of the day, after three years of working the tax rate down, down, down — it’s disappointing that we are at a crossroads — looking at reversing that a bit, but also realize that a lot of those decisions made over the last three years we based on some forecasts that the real world just didn’t materialize the environment we needed to sustain it,” he continued. “In order for us to continue to support the services — and level of services — we are as narrow as we can be here with the budget as proposed.”
“I think the staff and this board need to be complimented on the work they have done to get to this budget,” added District 1 Supervisor Douglas Holroyd. “I think we have done a very good job. We had an 8% rise in cost over eight years, after inflation, that’s remarkable.”
